Tracking China’s retail blitz across Southeast Asia

Every tourist arriving in Ho Chi Minh City visits the 110-year-old Ben Thanh Market. Its surrounding streets pulse with local eateries, coffee joints, and souvenir shops.

Yet amid these Vietnamese staples stands a branch of Miniso, a lifestyle chain that may appear Japanese but is actually Chinese. Since entering Vietnam in 2016, the brand has grown to 66 locations, taking prime spots in malls and bustling street corners.

It’s not the only one.

Chinese consumer brands are expanding at breakneck speed across Southeast Asia, snapping up flagship corners and turning passers-by into fans. That said, the region is far from being one single market, and brands sticking to a particular homegrown playbook could stumble.

Scale advantage

Chinese consumer brands aren’t new to Southeast Asia.

Haidilao, China’s largest hot pot chain, entered Singapore 13 years ago. Meanwhile, Mixue, now the world’s biggest F&B player by outlet count, picked Vietnam as the site for its first overseas store in 2018.

Yet Chinese brands have only started expanding aggressively across the region in the past three years.

By the end of 2024, more than 60 Chinese F&B brands were operating over 6,100 outlets in Southeast Asia. That’s triple the 2022 figure of less than 2,000, according to research firm Momentum Works.

With China’s consumer market still flat post-pandemic, Southeast Asia – with a population of 700 million people, 30% of whom are aged 15 to 34 – has become a good target for brands, says Lina Yan, consumer analyst at HSBC Global Investment Research.

Cultural ties play an important part here. Four of Southeast Asia’s six biggest countries have the world’s highest ethnic Chinese population shares.

New approach

Bumps on the road